Back to basic

Location : Kg. Pulau Pandan, Mak’s house.

Quiet night. Cool. Serene. Only sounds of crickets and frogs from the dark. Once in a while, the sounds of cars passing by heard from afar. Sitting alone at the verandah, sweet old memories of old days creeping to my mind. I am looking at once a paddy field. I used to run and play by the bays, enjoying my childhood, no responsibilities.

I am taking time to access my business. Together with my partner, Haji Husin, we have developed this partnership into a quite steady trade. With the committments by the Heads of Business Units and Support Service staffs, we have build quite an unwavering organisation. Suddenly, I realized I have been too ambitious lately. Business books say, in business we should always think big. Aim high. If you get lower, it’s still good. Aim low. If you get lower, it’s really bad. But am I setting too large goals in such short period of times? Am I over-promised myself? Am I being realistic? I think, I have to go back to basic. Focus on consistencies. A consistent stream of successful business transactions will eventually lead closer to the intended goals. It is not just limited in term of profits. It could be how consistent the employees are at work, how consistent the sales have been, how good we run our customer services, how consistent we are on our line of actions, etc.

I have to go back to basic. Concentrate on the target markets. The customers and clients are my profit generators. We need to find out what these people really want from our business. Better product? Better service? Better price? I will look back into their needs – with respect and importance, and that the money they are spending is worth its prices.

I have to go back to basic. Look into ourselves, our organization, our company, our team. We need to work smoothly and in-sync to produce comprehensive and satisfactory results. Broken communication, unfocused staff and motivations issues are some kinks that can bring dooms to our organization.

I have to go back to basic. Look into our products. It can be tangible which people can hold, see, smell and touch, or intangible like well organized services. Introducing a new product is NOT going to improve our profit margin. I do not think we will need a ‘new’ product, I just need to improve on the current one that I already have. Apple iPod never really did add new products to this product until recently. They basically improved on their base model by following industry and customer trends.

I realized, the basics of my business should be the ones to be answered first before jumping into new product or so-called innovative ideas. I don’t want to lose direction!